Lily chews the fat with ANTHONY RANERI of BAYSIDE!
Posted on Jan 17, 2011 / Posted by Lily Howell /
When I caught up with BAYSIDE’S frontman Anthony Raneri, I found him relaxing on the couch in his pyjamas with a coffee in hand. He had just finished touring and was enthusiastic about the band’s soon-to-be-released new album.
Lily: Now you’ve got a new album coming out next year. Can you tell us what the fans can expect to hear, like what was the inspiration for the album, because I’ve heard you say that albums can be a reflection of the time of what’s going in your life when writing the album.
Anthony: Yeah. The album is called Killing Time and it comes out in Australia on February 18th and Killing Time for us – the title track on the record, the chorus lyric is ‘I spent all my life waiting for a moment to come’, and I really feel like that is true for a lot of people. You wait and you wait and you’re kind of killing time and you’re waiting for something; anything, and you don’t even necessarily know what that is. You’re just kind of on a hamster wheel sometimes. For us, I mean, we have been waiting for a long time and we feel like we’ve really hit this kind of really great point in our personal and professional lives. We just signed a new record deal, which is very exciting to us. We have spent a whole year making this record that we’re incredibly proud of.
Lily: That’s cool. Do you do most of the song writing?
Anthony: Yeah, all the songs start actually – I don’t even have an electric guitar in my house. Everything just starts… just me and an acoustic guitar in my house and then I take it to the band and then we kind of – they put the Bayside… we do the Bayside thing to it.
Lily: Do you ever write when you’re on the road or is it mainly something you do at home?
Anthony: I do. Sometimes I’ll come up with maybe the lyrics more than anything, if I’m in a place kind of an inspiring place, I’ll sit down and I’ll think, just kind of put some concepts… lyrical concepts, through some lines but music… I’ve always had a real hard time kind of sitting down with the guitar and getting anything done outside of my house.
Lily: Yeah. Sometimes you need to be in your own environment, don’t you, to have the creativity flowing?
Anthony: Yeah, I really obsess over some of the songs. Especially with this record there’s a lot of – like people become… have more complex kind of ideas on it musically and that kind of composition, you really do have to obsess over it. It takes a lot of work to iron out ideas.
Lily: And often artists are perfectionists too.
Anthony: Yeah.
Lily: And you have to get it just right.
Anthony: It’s a curse.
Lily: Or a saviour.
Anthony: Yeah, I mean I guess after it’s said and done, it’s a saviour, rather than a curse.
Lily: Gill Norton whose worked with big names like Foo Fighters, Pixies and Counting Crows, produced the album. How was it working with him?
Anthony: It was unbelievable. I mean it was really – he was a dream come true actually. I mean when we did our first tour ever. I remember sitting in the van and back when people bought CDs, the Colour and the Shape album, I remember listening to it on my Discman and I was 18 and we were just starting as a band and the idea of ever making an album at all with anybody was kind of still foreign. Seeing his name and hearing that record, I was thinking like man, one day it would be cool to work with a guy like that.
Lily: It’s a great album, Colour and the Shape.
Anthony: It’s the best.
Lily: You’ve already released two tracks off the new album. How do you feel they’ve been received?
Anthony: I think great, I mean really – we’re really big on kind of…I feel like I’m musically, I have the same taste. I was virtually just kind of having a conversation with somebody the other day about it. How if we started a new band today, started from scratch, the band would sound like Bayside.
Lily: Yeah?
Anthony: I think that with this record, we try and – it was conscious to sound like Bayside you know. There’s a response to these songs. I thought we pulled it off. I was assigned to a major label for the first time and I think there was a lot of the fans kind of wondering where that was going to take us and you know with a response to the first song that we released, it’s a relief to people – it’s still Bayside.
Lily: Yeah, sometimes you don’t want to do something completely different. I mean, you want to still keep with the times but not completely turn away from the style that you’ve been playing and disappoint the fans who’ve kind of got you to where you are.
Anthony: Yeah, well I mean like I said it’s really – it’s a paced thing and we still want to play music like that. We just want to make a better Bayside record. We don’t want all of a sudden to kind of obsess over the Beatles and things, John Lennon all of a sudden, you know.
Lily: If you could make one major change to the music industry as it stands today, what would it be?
Anthony: You know I’d love for there to be more focus put on artists and music. Do you know what I mean? Because when you’re in the industry there’s all kinds of ugliness, you know, kind of selling of a product, do you know what I mean? As an artist I guess I see – I can always see from one angle and that’s kind of the plight of the artist, which most people can’t really be too sympathetic too. You know a lot of artists are mistreated and a record is kind of not nurtured by the industry sometimes. I don’t think I noticed that as much until recently because with our new label and stuff, I mean we were really treated like – you have a big focus on music and you need to be happy or you need to be comfortable, because the better the record, the easier everybody’s job is. A lot of other kind of people in the industry look at it more like – alright, just hurry up, just hurry up and make it because if it doesn’t work we need to go somewhere else, do you know what I mean?
Lily: Yeah. And I guess also, like you said, you want to be treated as an artist and as people rather than a product, trying to be sold. I mean of course you want to be successful but you’re still people and people creating art.
Anthony: Well I think people forget that art and the quality of it is where success comes from, you know what I mean? I mean everybody can kind of join in on making some money; do you know what I mean? Nobody has got anything against that. But I think you have to keep in mind that like, you make a great record, that’s how it happens. A lot of people try to take the other road, you know, the quicker road.
Lily: Do you feel that you’re affected by the 21st century music industry, which essentially has little support for alternative acts?
Anthony: I figured that – I think you’d have to be optimistic, do you know what I mean? And I think that it’s a tough time to be in the music industry right now. It can be easier if you kind of come at it with the right head space. I think that with the battle over the internet and the battle all over downloading and leaks and all that, I mean that battle has been fought and it’s been lost. You know what I mean, and really labels and bands and the whole industry really needs to realise that and figure out how to exist within this 21st century of the music industry.
Lily: The whole downloading thing has had a huge effect on the music industry. You can see how a lot of labels are only interested in the big mainstream acts that can produce a lot of money, which puts aside the alternative bands.
Anthony: It puts them aside in that like kind of grand limelight. You know what I mean? Like I don’t know that there’s going to be another Nirvana or Guns ‘N’ Roses, you know what I mean? Because of that, because that style, that kind of real artist, real music, rock music kind of thing is – it’s too hard to sell. I don’t think the industry is up for it any more. I mean there are plenty of bands like ours and bands even larger than ours that are making good livings and are getting to do what they want and getting to make great music and there’s bands who are appreciating it, and I think you have to… like I said, you’ve got to approach these things with the right head. You can’t go into this… you can’t start a punk band and then start wondering why you’re not as successful as Justin Bieber.
Lily: Does being in a band ever become so tedious that you’re rather just have a day job?
Anthony: No, no way. Never. I mean it’s kind of like there’s moments when you need to like throw some water in your face and kind of… you had a bad show or you had a long day or you just want to go home. You haven’t been home for goodness knows how long and you have those days when you know like… well you know what, I wasn’t laying bricks all day so that’s pretty good. I guess I’m doing something right.
Lily: What would you do if you weren’t in a band?
Anthony: Probably lay bricks. I don’t even know. I like coffee a lot. Open a coffee shop and have the same issue of kind of… have the same problem with trying to do something you love, you know, to make any money doing it.
Lily: What is your favour Bayside song? Do you have one?
Anthony: I think it would be on the new record, a song called Mona Lisa. I’m exceptionally kind of proud of it. I sat down one day to write a song and I said, just as an exercise, playing a game – I want to put as many, I want to try to change the key as many times as possible, you know, and just kind of see where it takes me. And I did it and it wound up coming out real cool, even actually listenable, do you know what I mean? To me that was a pretty…that was a big accomplishment as a writer, to try to pull something off that complicated and make it almost sound like a pop song. I think, at first listen, it sounds like one of the simpler songs on the record. It sounds like a Weezer song or something but actually there’s a lot of chords in that song.
Lily: Cool. Now can you name three people dead or alive that you would like to have lunch with?
Anthony: Let me think – it’s really hard because there’s so many people that I would think of off the top of my head that I really idolise and that I would really love to have a conversation with but then I think more about it and I might get let down.
Lily: You don’t want to ruin the fantasy.
Anthony: Morrissey I worship, you know what I mean, like we’d sit down, we’d have lunch and he would order a salad and I would order a steak and the conversation would go downhill immediately… Kurt Cobain, you know. That’s another thing, you know what I mean, like I don’t even drink. I don’t drink, so where would that conversation go? You know? Elvis Costello I think would be a pretty good conversationalist. You know, I’d put him like in my top 25 or so, you know what I mean… the top five artists ever but he seems like somebody that you’d have a pretty good conversation with.
Lily: Cool. What do you fear most?
Anthony: What do I fear most? I think… I’ve been in a band for… I’m 28 and I’ve been in a band for 10 years and before that I was just living with my parents and I didn’t have a care or a bill or anything and then I joined this band and life is… often when you’re in a band, you know what I mean, especially when you’re in a somewhat successful band.
Lily: And especially doing what you love.
Anthony: Exactly. I think you get caught up in la-la land and I have to keep reminding myself that like life is real and at any moment it can get real again. You know what I mean? I think that – I think I’ve gotten so comfortable kind of doing this. I’ve done it my entire life and I’ve gotten so comfortable and I think that like my biggest fear is that one day like reality could just slap me in the face and all of a sudden I’m not on tour, I’m not going to be in Australia once a year, I’m not going to Japan, I’m not going to have fans and money and opportunities and you know, I might have to get a job one day. I think that’s my biggest fear. That I will kind of…my dream has come true, you know what I mean? Wherever the band goes from here, who knows? But my dream has come true and I guess my biggest fear is kind of like losing that.
Lily: It’s good that you do think about it because you never know what life is going to throw you, do you?
Anthony: I think it’s important to stay grounded and recognise that that is… like this is a fantasy.
Lily: And a fantasy for many people too.
Anthony: Yeah, I mean I live in la-la land.
Q: Now you’ve got some tour dates in January in the US and then you’re coming here to Australia, in February/March for the Soundwave Festival.
Anthony: I really do like festival tours because it’s great. You always wind up with a ton of old friends and then you make a ton of new friends, so the kind of social aspect of the festival tours, it’s really… nothing compares to it. But Soundwave in particular, that is really… I think AJ who does the festival just does such a great job with it, you know it’s so well planned out. They take such good care of the bands.
Lily: Well I can’t wait to see you guys at Soundwave and thank you for talking to me.
Anthony: Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for taking the time.
Bayside will be playing at the 2011 Soundwave Festival. Check http://www.soundwavefestival.com for dates.
Tags: bayside, beatles, foo fighters, interview, john lennon, nirvana, soundwave festival
